There is an ever increasing demand for power conversion and regulation circuitry to operate with increased efficiency and reduced power consumption to accommodate the continuous reduction in size and operating life of electronic devices. Half-bridge and full-bridge power stages are commonly employed as power delivery stages in applications where power conversion at high efficiencies is required. For example, half-bridge and full-bridge power stages can be employed in DC-DC power converters and class-D audio power amplifiers. In portable power integrated circuits (ICs), power conversion and power delivery to the load is required at exceptionally high efficiencies. As an example, limited battery power typically needs to be delivered to the load at minimal losses to prolong battery life.
Certain power providing applications, such as implemented in providing power to liquid crystal displays (LCDs), requires generating a plurality of voltages that occupy a range of magnitudes. However, a given transistor or operational amplifier (OP-AMP) in such power providing applications can have a very small feature size. A maximum operating voltage of the given transistor or OP-AMP can be very small in magnitude relative to the voltage that it is required to generate. As an example, an OP-AMP can be required to generate a voltage between 20 and 26 volts to power an LCD, which is a voltage that is significantly larger than that which can be tolerated to power the OP-AMP. Thus, level-shifting circuitry can be implemented to power or control the power providing devices.